Self-love and Relationships

Self-love is the foundation in which a successful relationship stems from. When you are secure in yourself and what you have to offer, you are able to give and receive love authentically. We often make the mistake of believing that self-love is a selfish act when in actual fact it’s about getting in touch with ourselves and our happiness. Those who appear vain or conceited are perhaps battling their own personal demons and not in fact practicing self-love. Some examples of self-love for me and the ones I struggle with most are:

-Allowing my yes to be yes and my no to be no without fear of upsetting others.

-Accepting my flaws and not allowing anyone to make me feel insecure due to them.

-Avoid comparing myself to others as there is no one like me which I should embrace.

Self-love is an on-going process that has to constantly be worked on and that can’t be learnt over night but instead is a journey. Why did I relate self-love to relationships? The simplest answer I can give is this; if you have negative thoughts and feelings about yourself they will eventually become part of your relationship.

There are many areas of the relationship that can suffer due to lack of self-love:

Believing your partners too good for you

Lacking in self-love can lead you to think you are punching above your weight in regards to your partner. Ideally you should embrace single life and use it is as a time to gain confidence and be secure in what you bring to the table in all aspects. When in a relationship your partner can constantly attempt to reassure you but in reality there is nothing they can say to make you feel different. You have to think your enough and only you can change your mind set.

Relying on your partner for happiness

I am sure you have heard of the saying “happiness starts from within” and that is a fact. We all want to be loved and experience the feeling it brings. However a partner is simply there to enhance the happiness that already exists. When we become reliant on another individual to give us happiness we give that person full control over how we feel. This means that if the relationship ends you will be left distraught and unhappy; we control our happiness our relationships don’t.

Staying in a relationship out of fear of being alone

Let’s face it a lot of individuals find themselves in situations where they want to leave a relationship but find it extremely difficult. They become complacent and therefore are afraid of the prospect of being alone.

Without self-love we will stay in situations such as this even if the relationship doesn’t satisfy us, but we should be able to reach a point at which being alone is no longer scary.

Personally, I am sure just like most people we would like to enter a relationship completely in love with our selves. I believe many of us are not even aware of our lack of self-love until we are actually in a relationship and start to notice particular traits in our behaviour that we can only put down to a lack of it. A relationship should not define you nor should it be the reason for your happiness. Whilst in the relationship you will feel a false excitement and thrills but if the relationship falls apart you will find yourself in a negative place which is not good for you mentally or physically.